


Remember A Romance In Reverse

by Squashers



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:25:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squashers/pseuds/Squashers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been eight months since Freddie was taken back to the treatment centre, and Haley still isn't sure whether she's grieving him or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember A Romance In Reverse

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [kiyala](http://kiyala.tumblr.com/) for betaing!
> 
> "The meaning of life is connected, inextricably, to the meaning of death; ...mourning is a romance in reverse, and if you love, you grieve and there are no exceptions...."  
> \- Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking

There are still days when she doesn't know what to do with herself, when she walks blindly from room to room, picking things up and putting them back down. She finds herself gravitating toward the slightly scratched DVD that she hid in one of her workout routine cases after she got home that night. She doesn't like to think about that night.  
  
She still has Freddie's ugly, _stupid_ blue watch hidden in her purse, the alarm turned off. Sometimes she laughs at herself when she encounters it while digging for a tissue or a pen. It's not like he's dead this time; he's not _gone_ like she thought he was six years ago, when she watched the DVD every night for a year, and slept on his side of the bed until it no longer smelled like him, and when she realized that she cried for three hours on the floor of the shower. Sometimes she thinks she's grieving him again. But he's not dead this time. He's back at the treatment centre, at Norfolk, where she'd picked him up standing awkwardly in the hall, wearing jeans and a green sweater and an ugly rain jacket that wasn't his. She still keeps the watch, though. In her heart she knows he's not coming back. There's no second chances after his second chance.

It's been eight months, and Haley still sees Kieren sometimes, at the shopping market or in the street. He gives her a small, sympathetic smile when he sees her, and doesn't ask how Freddie is doing. He knows how Freddie is doing.

She can't help but notice, though, that he seems happier in recent months than he was when he first came back. The Irishman, Simon, has been following him around town for a while now with a soft gaze. She hopes they'll be more successful than she ever was. Still, she can't look at Kieren very long. He doesn't wear his cover-up or contacts anymore, and while he doesn't look bloated and bile-stained and rabid, she can't look into his eyes without thinking of Freddie bearing down on her with his teeth bared. Those eyes frighten her.

There are days when she doesn't know what to do with herself. She finds herself sitting on Freddie's bed in the guest room, going through his clothes in the tiny dresser, searching out his smell on the hood of a jacket. She flips the DVD disc over and over in her hands but doesn't put it in the player. One day she gets halfway to the cemetery to visit his grave before she comes to herself. She turns around and goes back home and sits by herself on the sofa and stares at her hands. She still has a tan line where her wedding ring used to be.

She still loves Freddie. Sure, there were hard moments, and they were terrible at communicating, but they had been together since they were fifteen. They never really had time apart to grow up and learn about good communication. She's still not very good at it. She loves Amir, too. Amir has a system and she follows it, but it's never been _theirs_ like everything was when it was just her and Freddie putting the house together and living in each other's pockets and learning every nook and cranny and corner together.

Amir sometimes talks about selling the house, about moving away to a city, to a different town, somewhere new. Haley never responds when he says those things. She's lived in Roarton her whole life. More than that, she's afraid of living somewhere without her history in it. She doesn't want to live somewhere new where all she has is the terrifying memory of Freddie's rabid figure advancing on her and a wobbly, tinny video of their wedding day. She'd rather stay here, where she has the memory of that hallway where Freddie picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, laughing and shrieking, and carried her into the kitchen for breakfast before going out to the paintball course the next town over. She'd rather have the memory of his favourite, unhealthily sugary cereal always hidden from her in the back corner of the lefthand cupboard, and how she pretended she didn't know it was there, even though she knew all along. She'd rather have the memory of locking him out when he went to get something from his car, and chasing him from window to window around the house, pressing her face to the glass and making a face every time he tried to look inside. She wishes she could erase that night from her memory and just play the old ones over and over again, like a DVD she can pause and rewind and replay.

She wakes up from a nightmare with a swallowed yelp, black bile and pale eyes still floating ominously in the front of her mind. Amir only mumbles slightly in his sleep and rolls over. She rubs a hand across her eyes and gets out of bed, trying to be as quiet as possible as she pulls on yesterday's jeans and a purple jumper. Her shoes are downstairs, and she slides her feet into them while looping a tie around her unbrushed hair to keep it out of her face. Then she's out in the crisp air of the dark early morning, walking aimlessly.

She finds herself not at Freddie's old grave, or at The Legion, but wandering the field beyond the houses, looking out at the forest. She listens to the wind swooping across the field, and the crunch of her own feet over the cold ground. In the dim light she can see an empty shed in the distance, "BEWARE ROTTERS" spray painted in sloppy red across the side. She turns her head away from it and keeps walking.

The figure in a grey hoodie sitting on a boulder makes her jump when she comes close enough to see it, but her heart steadies itself when she realizes the person isn't a rabid. She ventures nearer.

"H-Hello?"

"Oh!" She jumps again when an ashen face and milk-white eyes are turned to face her, but lets out a shaky breath when she realizes it's Kieren Walker. He gives her an apologetic look, lips twisted to the side. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's all right."

"Didn't know there was anyone else around."

She laughs a little and fiddles with the end of her ponytail. "Neither did I."

Kieren scoots to his right and pats the space beside him on the boulder, and Haley clambers up to sit cross-legged beside him. He looks at her, mouth twisted thoughtfully to the side. "Couldn't sleep?"

She looks down at her fingers knotted together in her lap. "Nightmares."

"Hm. Me, too."

"I keep dreamin' of that night. Of hiding behind his tool rack while he tried to get me. And all that black all over his face. Keep thinking about his face. His eyes." Kieren turns his head away then. "Sorry."

"No, I understand." There's a slight tremor in his voice, and she's pretty sure he's thinking of someone specific. "They scare people."

"You don't have to. I know you're not going to hurt me."

He turns back to her, but keeps his eyes down so the lids cover them. "They're normal, the nightmares. I get them too. About the time-- before. When they hadn't treated me yet. And about what happened at the beating of the bounds." She'd heard about that. Everyone in town had been talking about it. Something had made him go rabid, and he'd somehow beaten it, forced it into submission and gone back to normal. She remembers she'd wished that had happened to Freddie. "I always wake up terrified I've hurt someone somehow. That I've hurt me dad or-or me sister, or someone else. I don't want to be like that."

"You're not. You helped me when you didn't even have to. He could've hurt you."

He pokes his own face experimentally. "I don't feel pain. Not really."

She scoffs at him. "You know what I mean."

They sit together in silence for a long moment. Haley picks at a loose thread on the sleeve of her jumper, and Kieren gnaws gently on the side of his own thumb, the soft click of his teeth against the nail a low, strange sound between them.

She breathes a heavy sigh and looks out across the field into the night. Kieren's gaze is a weight on the side of her face. "When he died, I thought I was never going to get over it. I don't think I ever did, really, even when he came back. I barely left the house for a year after I buried him. And then I forced myself to get over him. I forced myself to find someone new and to get a life and move forward in my job. I tried not to think of him at all. I tried to forget him. Then Norfolk called and told me he was back and...and everything came crashing down."

"He was your husband. You still loved him. It's all right."

"Feels like he's dead again, though." She bites her lip and goes back to twisting her fingers together. "I keep doing things I did that first year. Going through his stuff, watching our videos, stuff like that. He's only at the treatment centre, and I'm acting like he's died all over again."

This time it's Kieren that shifts, nervously. She knows in her heart, and he knows, Freddie's not coming back from the treatment centre. That's not how this works. He was listed as non-compliant, and Haley is certain they don't treat non-compliants too kindly there.

Kieren clasps his hands together and rests his thumbs against his chin. "That year, my best friend-- my boyfriend-- joined the army. Rick Macy, you remember him? He died in Afghanistan. I thought it was my fault, that he'd left because of me. That he'd died because of me. I tried to mourn him, really I did, but I couldn't get over his death, or the guilt." He unclasps his hands and places them in his lap, right hand rubbing across his left wrist, under the sleeve of his jacket. "Other things started happening, too. I couldn't-- I didn't want to deal with me own head. I just wanted to disappear. So I...I killed myself. And then I came back. And Rick did too."

Haley remembers talk of the funeral for Kieren, rumours around town about what happened, but she had been too caught up in her own grief to care much. She watches Kieren's fingers tighten on his own wrist.

"His dad didn't understand that he'd come back PDS. That he wasn't the same and couldn't do things like eat or drink. Bill just kept pretending until he couldn't anymore. And then he killed Rick again. Left his- left his body for me to find. Rick was gone again and I couldn't take it and I-- I almost left again, too. But me mum found me and stopped me, convinced me to stay and try to live. And since then I've realized something."

He pulls his hand away from his own arm--she gets a glimpse of a reddish-black gash--and places it on her shoulder to make sure she's listening. She can't quite look into those milky eyes, so she looks at his mouth instead, glancing up at them for moments in between. He seems to understand.

"I know Freddie was your first love. And Rick-- Rick was mine. We'll always love them, and I think we're supposed to. I don't think we're ever supposed to just get over them or forget about them. They made us who we are. But we've got more love, enough for more than one person. That's what I've learned after all that. My mate, Amy, I loved her as much as I loved Rick. She was my best friend." He shakes his head, seeming to turn inward for a moment as his mouth twists to one side and his eyes close. "She was my best friend. And Simon-- the Irish one, you've seen him-- I love him, too. He saved me life. He _changed_ my life. I love him, I love them both, but when I think of Rick, I know I still love him, too. What I'm saying is, you can love someone who's with you now, completely, and still love someone who's gone. It's not impossible."

Dawn is edging its way over the trees, the sky a cloudy bluish colour that washes Haley's haggard face pale and Kieren's even paler. She thinks about what Kieren's just told her, then gestures half-heartedly in the direction of her house.

"But Amir's so--different from Freddie."

"Which is why you can love him too. Don't compare him to Freddie. He won't ever add up. Love him for who he is as himself. That's how you do it. Don't compare, but don't forget either. You still love Freddie, you always will. But you can love Amir too."

"You never compare Simon and Rick?"

Kieren chuckles a little. "Well, sometimes. Once he tried to call me the nickname Rick used to use for me. I had to make him stop and tell him why. But Rick's gone and Simon's here, and that's what's important."

In the morning light, she's less frightened of his uncovered face. She stares into his eyes and isn't met with the hunger-blind anger or deadened blankness she expects. She sees sadness behind them, and understanding, and kindness, a person. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, understanding that this is a big thing for her, this lessening of fear.

"Thank you," she says, wishing there was something better to say. "Really."

He shrugs, like it was nothing. Like an undead eighteen year old giving advice to a twenty-eight year old living married woman is normal. "Just-- tell Amir about the nightmares. Gently. He'll be able to help you, and it'll get better."

"I will." On impulse, she hugs him, pulling a small "oh" of surprise from him and a moment of shocked hesitation before he puts his arms around her as well. He's cool to the touch, but his arms around her are gentle and comforting. She pulls away and gets off the rock, flicking her hair out of her face and looking at Kieren where the rising sun through the trees lights his ginger hair like a halo. "Thanks."

The walk home is cold and solitary and when she gets back, it's still early and Amir isn't up yet. She makes a cup of tea and circles the kitchen twice before finding herself in front of the television. Giving in to the impulse, she pulls the DVD from its hiding spot and puts it in the player, the volume down low. Freddie's face, warm and alive and full of colour, smiles at herself in the recording, and out at her watching. She finds herself crying.

She knows she's grieving him again. But it's okay now. She'll keep the sweatshirt that was his favourite and wear it on the days that it's cold, but when Amir's around she'll find him and a blanket instead. She'll keep his watch in her purse until she only uses it to remember the exact shade of Freddie's eyes. She'll tell Amir about the nightmares and he'll hold her when she wakes him up and draw her a bath to make her feel good. And she won't forget Freddie or stop loving him then, but she'll love Amir now. And one day, she'll be okay. She'll be okay.

 


End file.
